http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24783605/
In an already controversial new book out later this month, "Who Owns
Antiquity? Museums and the Battle for Our Ancient Heritage," author James
Cuno argues for a return to the idea of "partage." The term refers to the
system that persisted for many years in which foreign-led experts -
typically Europeans and Americans - worked with locals to excavate
antiquities in countries like Iraq and Egypt. Some of the material went to
local museums, but much of the rest ended up in the museums in the experts'
home countries.
But the system has been supplanted by conventions and national laws designed
to keep antiquities in their home countries. Cuno, president and director of
the Art Institute of Chicago, argues the changes have been harmful. He spoke
recently to The Associated Press, and his responses are excerpted here.
AP: You write in the book that you've changed your thinking about how
antiquities should be handled has changed? How and why?
Cuno: Initially, I thought like everyone probably the best thing was for
(antiquities) to be preserved as is, for archaeologists to excavate and
document. I then came to realize other people wanted other things from them.
Those in power in nation states in whose jurisdiction antiquities lay wanted
a kind of legitimization of their political position. So antiquities and
ancient heritage became a means to a political end, when I thought
originally it was the stuff of academic science.
AP: What's wrong with cultural property laws that require the retention of
antiquities in the countries where they are found?
Cuno: We have put these antiquities, this part of our ancient heritage, at
increasing peril because we have concentrated the risk in one place.
Previously, through this partage, one could share these ancient antiquities,
and they could be distributed to other museums. The risks of a calamity
destroying all or most of these antiquities was less.
(The laws) have limited access to these ancient things, and deprived a large
number of people around the world the benefits of seeing them and learning
from them about the achievements and characteristics of our ancient
forebears.
And they have perpetuated a false view of culture as a pure and static thing
that has national characteristics. In a time of resurgent nationalism and
sectarian violence, the perpetuation of the false view of culture as
something that distinguishes one modern people from another modern people is
dangerous. We know that culture has always been fluid, hybrid and mongrel,
and has never accepted political borders, and it has linked more people
together than it has separated. These cultural property laws ... put walls
up between peoples.
AP: It's true that, for example, the modern nation of Greece is not the only
cultural descendent of ancient Greece. But does that mean Greece really
should have no more say than anyone else on the antiquities found there?
Cuno: I think any of these modern nations can exercise a greater claim than
any other nation on antiquities found within their jurisdiction. But not in
terms of an identity with those ancient people. It is not on the basis that
they are the modern heirs to the achievements of these ancient peoples, that
they descend from them in any kind of continuous or natural way and that the
modern culture is akin to the ancient culture.
I'm not arguing that modern nations have no role to play, or no greater role
to play, in determining the fate of antiquities fond within their borders.
They may have some primacy in that regard. But we all have a right to them
and would gain from a greater familiarity with them.
AP: Critics of this book are already taking aim at your argument, on the
grounds it suggests Western superiority and cultural imperialism. How do you
respond?
Cuno: It's not true. Historically, partage has not simply built the
collections of the host nations of excavating teams. ... It also built the
local museums and their collections. The Baghdad Museum, Kabul, Cairo, were
built through he process of sharing the finds that foreign excavators found.
Partage encourages a broader understanding of the achievements of different
ancient peoples, encouraging the sense that we all collectively have a stake
in the preservation of this material.
AP: You write that what you really support is the principle of the
"encyclopedic museum," where artifacts from a broad range of cultures are
gathered in one place. But aren't those museums concentrated in the West?
Cuno: I recognize it's a legacy of the Enlightenment and that encyclopedic
museums tend to be only where that legacy reached. It tends to be only
Anglo-Saxon areas or where the French Enlightenment took place - France and
Russia. That isn't an argument against the principle of the encyclopedic
museum. It's an argument for encouraging the development of encyclopedic
museums everywhere.
...
Dave Welsh
Unidroit-L Listowner
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Unidroit-L
dwelsh46@cox.net
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